January 21,
2015
(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and
illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)
Beauty and danger are often bedfellows.
I have seen fantastic vistas unfold on Pike’s Peak. However,
there is a scarier view too—no guardrails on the way up or down and the drop is
steep. Oxygen is scarcer the higher you go and those with asthma, like me, may
experience difficulty breathing. Beauty and danger in one package but there is safety
too with proper caution—travelers ride down in low gear and park rangers conduct
brake checks to make sure brakes do not overheat and fail.
Some animals and flowers also give us a bipolar sense. The
beautiful lion with its huge muscular body and especially the male’s glorious
mane is known to attack humans. The opium poppy, a splendid flower, is also an
opiate responsible for death when humans overdose. Safety is knowledge
Don’t forget religion, which has elements of beauty and
danger. There is a beauty in faith and its healing of the spirit for some but
in extreme, religion has become dangerous as we see on the news every day. And
those who follow charismatic charlatans blindly will become sick in spirit.
This afternoon huge snowflakes danced in the sky around me.
Snow is truly one of nature’s beauties, from the microscopic view of a
snowflake to the wide landscape. Its covering transforms even the ugliest areas
into a wonderland. But snow also is the cause of sometimes fatal accidents,
heart attacks for elderly snow shovelers and bone-breaking falls. Unlike Pike’s
Peak, my outside steps have a railing next to them and I hold on as I go up and
down.
Today’s gift is a railing in the midst of beauty and danger.
You can read my other posts on this project here:
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